Gradated Racism. Moving Between “Ends in Themselves” and “Mere Means”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21700977 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Reza Mosayebi (0009-0002-8248-8902, Ruhr University Bochum, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 47-70 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Ethics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1382-4554 • E-ISSN: 1572-8609 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10892-025-09538-4 |
| OpenAlex | W4416952917 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 44 |
I reveal a pervasive though often unobtrusive form of racism which merits its own discussion. Gradated racism , as I call it, can co-exist with sophisticated moral views. To elucidate this, I make use of Kant’s race and moral theories, considered together and as equally important. I borrow his dichotomy of “end in itself” and “mere means” and re-conceptualize it. I argue that this helps us to analyze the normative nature of gradated racism properly. I then argue for reading the terms of the dichotomy as correlational with one another and as two termini of an “open interval” continuum. Those who are racialized against in this way, whom I call, taking inspiration from Charles Mills but refining his term, “sub-persons”, are treated along that continuum: they are useful to the “superior” race in specific ways and, though never respected unconditionally, are not seen as non-persons either
Normative · Racial bias · Racism · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Race, Genetics, and Society
Critique of the Power of Judgment
Immanuel Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Moral Status As a Matter of Degree?
Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism
Towards Justice and Virtue
Anti-Racism and Kant Scholarship
Black Radical Kantianism
Kant’s Nonideal Theory of Politics
Black Rights/White Wrongs
German Invention of Race, The
Kant’s Second Thoughts on Colonialism
Poverty, Exploitation, Mere Things and Mere Means
Beyond (Non)-Instrumentalization
Kant's Metaphysics of Race, Its Distinctiveness, and Its Normativity
How to Use Someone ‘Merely as a Means’
Kant On Moral Agency and Women's Nature
White Progress
What’s wrong with inevitable progress? Notes on Kant’s anthropology today
The Enlightenment
Race, Empire, and the Idea of Human Development
On what matters, Volume one
Treating as a Mere Enemy
Kant and Race, Redux
Kant’s Defense of Human Moral Status
Treating Others Merely as Means
Kant and Applied Ethics
Kant and Women
Antinomies of race
Kant's Formula of the End in Itself
Kant on Race Mixing, Subracial Variety, and Progressive Culture
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |